Jonathan Hirsch said he didn’t know he was walking into trouble when he stopped by the Jerusalem Coffee House in Oakland on the afternoon of Oct. 26.
Hirsch, who lives in Oakland, said he was looking for a latte after he and his 5-year-old son grabbed hot dogs at a stand across the street. He’d paid for his order and was playing chess with his son when a man, who he later learned was Abdulrahim Harara, the shop’s co-founder, accosted him.
Hirsch provided video to J. that shows Harara approaching Hirsch, who was wearing a blue baseball cap embossed with a white Jewish star. The cap is a piece of New York baseball memorabilia, Hirsch said.
“Are you a Zionist?” Harara demanded.
“I’m going to call the police if you don’t leave,” he also said.
The Jerusalem Coffee House is a year-old cafe in North Oakland that celebrates Palestinian culture. It was recently in the news because of two controversial drink offerings on its menu, which is festooned with inverted red triangles, a symbol used by Hamas to mark Israeli military targets.
One of the drinks is called the “Sweet Sinwar.” Yahya Sinwar was the Hamas leader and architect of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in Israel, the worst terrorist attack in the country’s history. After receiving negative attention for the drink, Harara denied that it was named after the terrorist leader. (Sinwar was killed in Gaza on Oct. 16, days after the cafe released its new menu.)
Another drink is called the “Iced In Tea Fada” (pronounced “intifada”).
Hirsch said that while he had heard about the controversy, he did not know he was entering the café in question. He saw that it had Arabic lettering but said he didn’t anticipate a problem.
“It’s not my experience that Muslim equals conflict, or I’m not welcome, or something like that,” he told J.
Hirsch said he didn’t even know that the man who approached him worked at the café.
“At first I’m like, oh, he’s a patron in here and antisemitic and I’d better start filming him, right?” Hirsch recalled. “So I start filming him. And it just escalates from there.”
Hirsch said Harara brought another man over during their confrontation, and the other man grabbed him.
“The guy grabs me by the shoulder and back, and I think, ‘Get your hands off of me, what’s going on here?’ He’s like, ‘You’re trespassing,’” Hirsch said. “And the second he put his hands on me and my son is in the mix, I decide, OK, the safe thing for me to do here and de-escalate the situation is to sit back down in my seat.”
The video shows Harara continuing to demand that Hirsch leave the cafe. “This is a violent hat, and you need to leave,” he said.
Hirsch responded that under California law, religion is a protected class and a business cannot refuse to serve customers because of their religion.
“I’m not asking you to leave because of that,” Harara replied. “Are you a Zionist? Are you a Zionist? Leave!”
J. reached out to Jerusalem Coffee House but did not receive a response.
Hirsch told J. that he was sitting quietly with his son when he was first approached.
“I never engaged with him,” Hirsch said. “I didn’t get into a conversation about apartheid. I didn’t get into a conversation about Israel or Zionism or any of those things. I simply asserted my right that he wasn’t allowed to kick me out for a Star of David.”
Harara said he would call the police, and Hirsch said he would wait.
Video shows Oakland Police Department officers attempting to de-escalate the situation. Hirsch said they were confused by some of the terms being used.
One of the police officers “was asking me to spell Zionism, to spell Israeli. She asked me, she’s taking notes, ‘Tell me what Zionism means to you.’ I said, ‘Why are you asking me these questions? Why, did I say anything about Zionism or Israel?’”
He said he was deeply disappointed in how little the officers seemed to understand about what was going on or how to handle it. Hirsch said he also called a synagogue acquaintance who was an attorney to come by and help out as he talked to police.
Hirsch said the police recommended he leave when protesters started arriving.
“There’s people pulling up into the parking lot screaming ‘Free Palestine’ at me. Some woman pulls up with a car, opens up the trunk and starts taking out signs, like cardboard signs that say ‘Free Gaza’ and ‘Zionism is racism’ and all these things, and the sergeant says, you know, we’ve got all your statements.”
In an email to J., Oakland police said they are investigating the interaction as a “disturbance.” “When officers arrived, they learned that an argument occurred between two individuals inside a business,” the email said. “Officers responded to the scene and are looking into the incident to determine if it meets the criteria of a hate incident.”
“The cops told me there was zero chance that they were going to prosecute a simple assault under these circumstances,” Hirsch said, adding, “I’m desperate to know what institutions here are still going to protect us.”
Hirsch said he felt terrible that it all happened in front of his son, but also felt it was a moment to show that Jewish people aren’t spineless.
“Just in that moment, I was like, I can’t leave here, not for my son,” he said. “I can’t show him that, uh-oh, an antisemite is screaming at me, we better scurry, we better run off.”
Hirsch said the situation shocked him in deep ways and has left him in real doubt about his future in Oakland, a city he moved to because of its reputation as a vibrant and inclusive multicultural place.
“I need to know, does the city actually not think that the Oakland I believe in is real, that it’s supposed to be safe and inclusive for everyone?” he said. “Because I just don’t understand what is going on here.”